Bound Like a Criminal and His Crime
by moonbird66
Summary: During one of their evening walks, Holmes and Watson discover a wall of graffiti in an alley way. Holmes deduces some of these writings matching them with their authors. But one of the authors reveals something even the great detective didn't see coming.


The warm July air stood exceptionally still as the detective and the doctor strayed away from Baker Street, taking their stroll further. The sky radiated pinks and purples and various shades of blue, the sun setting over them and it threw a happy feeling over each of their shoulders.

Holmes smiled brightly, and closed his eyes. The stresses of his recent case left him at once. "What a lovely evening we're having,"

"Yes, gorgeous. I've never seen you this happy before, either." said Watson, moving his gaze over to his friend. He nearly fell apart over how beautiful he looked with his eyes so in awe and the sunlight beaming off his face.

He was going to reply back to Watson till he noticed a wall of colorful inscriptions deep within an alley way. Watson followed Holmes reluctantly, as a faint deja-vu feeling rushed to his cheeks.

"Look at this, Watson. My beautiful Victoria, someday I will win over your heart and our unfaithfulness will finally end. 23rd May, 1890. Hm, it seems to be anonymous."

Watson scoffed. "Well, I'm sure you would be able to figure it out anyways-"

"That's a wonderful idea!" and, Holmes began. "Okay, the hand writing is in cursive and if you notice, the r's are very thin and his d's are fat. It looks like the same writing as on the sign right outside the barbershop..."

Holmes went on, and Watson listened only partly as he read some of the graffiti printed on the long black wall. Several promises from unfaithful lovers, a lot of "so-and-so was here on this date", and different quotations by authors and the scriptures. There was one rather long, chalked out in small hand writing, vaguely similar to his own. It was a poem. And it read from the third brick up, all the way down to the ground.

He read it, and the first line immediately made Watson jump out of his skin and blush rather furiously.

"...Aha! This could only be Mr. Stratford, from the Opera House, remember? He sat by us and asked if you would look at his scar on his back." Holmes turned around and saw Watson red as a beet. "What's the matter, dear? Found something Mary wrote? I had a bad feeling the day I-" Holmes stopped short, finding the piece of writing and not failing to realize who the author was.

The small choppy words squeezed together, a lot similar to how his companion writes his prescriptions when he's in a hurry. It was slanted as well, a lot like how his companion writes when it's something important and meaningful like his letters to Mary or a sorry note to him. He saw his name on the third line, written the same curvy way as he's seen it many times before.

He read this- this work of words over again as it compelled his heart a thousand times more each time the soft and emotional lines shifted his brain:

I love you more than words can express,

And I'm saddened by it, you don't understand.

Holmes, we're bound like a criminal and his case,

I never wanted you to happen, but you did.

I never wanted to get caught, but I am.

You will solve my crime and I will be,

a prisoner, handcuffed to you

"W-wow, is that about me?" He seemed oblivious, Watson thought, but Holmes could pretend to be many things, and he wasn't stupid.

"This handwriting looks familiar..." Holmes bent down to investigate the poem further.

Watson coughed. "It's getting late, Holmes. I think it's best we head back to Baker Street." And when the realization hit his friend, he began walking hurriedly out of the alley.

"You wrote it."

He stopped mid step. The eyes of the person he seemed to have wrote about, were piercing through his back. The cold, drunken night he wrote it on that wall, was one he made goal to forget. It was this walk that brought its attention back in place and it pissed Watson off. Of all the times they passed this alley, Holmes chose tonight to notice its presence and investigate it.

He turned back around, waiting to see the shocked, disgusted expression upon Holmes face. It was shocked alright, but not disgusted. More like relieved...

"I was- I was just um..."

"Frustrated, confused, tired of hiding?" Holmes read him like a book.

Watson sighed, "Yes."

The hard silence drew a blanket over them. Watson felt ashamed, and scared. This could scar everything he's ever had with Holmes, as a companion, as a friend. He never thought about seeing this collision head on, but it happened. Without a warning.

He tried not to look at Holmes, but that happened as well. Holmes was moving closer, eyes softening but rimming with wet tears. Holmes felt stupid for this, and gave in to himself. Next thing he could see happening, himself leaning in to Watson. His forehead against the other.

"I know," his voice was shaky and quiet. By now, all of London was black and the summer stars appeared without a blur. The world was in perfect order and for once, Watson wasn't about to get excluded from it.

He thought about how unbelievably blessed he was for this to happen as Holmes placed his lips against his own.


End file.
